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REMARKS 



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Senator Philander C. KNoi. 

at a dinner given to the 

Pennsylvania Delegation 
in Congress 

by 

HON. JOSEPH C. SIBLEY 

December 4 
1907 



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PRESENTED BY (\ £ 







REMARKS 



of 

Senator Philander C. Knox 

at a dinner given to the 

Pennsylvania Delegation 
in Congress 

by 

HON. JOSEPH C. SIBLEY 

December 4 
1907 






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TO Mr '09 



Mr. Host, Mr. Toastmaster and Fellow Guests: 

As a member of the Pennsylvania delegation in Con- 
gress, it is an honor and pleasure to meet my fellow 
members upon the threshold of the Sixtieth Congress 
under such delightful auspices. 

I expect to see the Pennsylvania delegation make it- 
self conspicuous this session, as usual, by its good sense. 
I am sure its influence will be felt in all measures of 
importance, and through the industry of its members 
it will reach the heart of what is proposed and what is 
needed; I am likewise confident it will discriminate 
wisely between the nostrums offered for the palliation 
of public ills and the true remedy that goes to the cause 
of such infirmities with which it will be called upon to 
deal; and that it will avoid the snares of the high- 
sounding phrase and deft manipulation of words and 
facts when employed, as they frequently are, to catch 
the unwary law maker. 

It would surprise me greatly to find in this delegation 
any lack of appreciation of the fact that we represent 
here our people, and our Commonwealth, and that we 
are chosen for our places not because the people wish to 



gratify our ambitions, but because they expect a service 
in the interest of the whole people marked by the cour- 
age of intelligent and patriotic conviction. 

For the too generous words of commendation spoken 
of me to-night, permit me to thank you all most sin- 
cerely. I value them especially as words of approval 
of such public service as I have been enabled to render 
in the past. As to the suggestion of possible higher 
service for the future, that suggestion must rest upon 
such foundation as my public record and the wishes of 
Pennsylvania Eepublicans supply. 

I wish I could feel as certain of the value of the one 
as I feel gratitude for the confidence implied in the 
other. 

An astute political leader once said, "Republican 
nominations have always been made with a thorough 
understanding and concession of the fitness and avail- 
ability of the candidates and an intelligent and compre- 
hensive survey of tactical positions." 

This observation was predicated upon a resume of the 
conditions and reasons which led to the selection of all 
the Republican candidates from Fremont to McKinley. 

Supplementing this statement and bringing the party 
record to date, I may add that in 1904, Theodore 
Roosevelt was nominated and overwhelmingly elected 



as a tribute to his sincerity and in approval of his un- 
relenting purpose to stamp out public vice and corpo- 
rate abuses and to secure the equality of all before the 
law. 

Let me venture to predict, Mr. Toastmaster, that the 
delegates to the next Eepublican National Convention 
will approach and perform their duty of selecting the 
nominee of the party with the same wisdom, with an 
eye single to the public and party weal and uninflu- 
enced by other considerations. I also venture to pre- 
dict, without alluding at all to the Pennsylvania sug- 
gestion, that the nominee, whoever he may be, and 
many good men have been mentioned, will be a pro- 
gressive Eepublican and earnestly desirous of main- 
taining the record of his party as the leader in all real 
and rational movements for the advancement of the 
people in their National affairs. 

Adverting to what has been said here to-night, let me 
add that the Republican party has always fostered, 
guarded and protected the vast interests of this coun- 
try, the interests of the farmer, the workman, the manu- 
facturer, the shipper, the carrier, and the general pub- 
lic, and Republican policies in these respects will be ad- 
vanced along healthful and constitutional lines wher- 
ever and whenever it is found to be necessarv to secure 



6 

that absolute equality of right and opportunity which 
is bottomed upon the immutable foundations of natural 
justice. For all of these things the present administra- 
tion has notably struggled with marked success, both 
in the halls of legislation and in the courts of justice. 

The sum of Democratic criticism of what we have ac- 
complished is that they would have done it themselves 
if they had been in power and this amounts to ap- 
proval. 

When I speak of making progress upon constitu- 
tional lines, I do so well knowing the disposition in 
some quarters to raise the cry that when a public man 
now speaks reverently of the Constitution of his coun- 
try, which every servant of Nation and State is sworn 
to defend, he is making an implied assault upon all 
progress; just as in other quarters it is with equal ab- 
surdity proclaimed when President Roosevelt refers 
approvingly to the maxim that honesty is the best pol- 
icy he is violently assailing the foundations of credit. 
Of course, as in most instances, sound sense is found 
between these extreme views. We will get on better in 
this country when less heed is taken of those who speak 
derisively of rationality and stability, and less heed of 
those who see in all progress the seeds of panic. 

It is most gratifying to be able to say of the Consti- 



tution of the United States that power was found be- 
tween its covers to vitalize each important progressive 
step that has been taken in National development dur- 
ing the last six years, and it is equally gratifying to say 
of this administration that I have never known it to 
make a recommendation that has become a law, or to 
place an executive construction upon an existing law 
affecting largely the general welfare, that its position 
has not been sustained in the Supreme Court when it 
has reached that tribunal. 

Mr. Toastmaster, yielding tolerance for the opinions 
of others and demanding tolerance for our own, Repub- 
licans should and will pull together, in the future as in 
the past, with true allegiance to our Country, our Con- 
stitution, our Party, and our President. While the exi- 
gencies of ante-convention politics will generate the 
usual and useful friction necessary to secure a finished 
product, and while small minds will be befogged by 
impressions of irreconcilable differences, and fail to 
grasp the relation between the things they understand 
and the things that are important, yet in the end, with 
its best blood in the Convention, the Republican party 
will name the next President of the United States and 
its choice, wherever it may fall, will receive unanimous 
Republican approval. 



